This was the first Bomberman game to be released on the SNES and it’s a pretty solid instalment in the series. If I’m completely honest, a lot of Bomberman games are all pretty similar, but they all have a very solid formula at their heart (especially for multiplayer) which makes the series fun to return to regularly.
The single player story is your standard affair – the planet of the Bomber people is threatened by an evil villain, so you have to go through various levels in order to defeat their minions and to work your way up to them. You walk around through mazes full of destructible walls and have to defeat all of the enemies in them and find the exit, collecting items which enhance the power of your bombs as you do. Levels include fun fairs, factories and sky scrapers. What I found most fun in single player were the boss battles, which are all giant enemies which require a little more strategy to defeat. The final bosses in particular were impressive, though also rather tricky!
Then, of course, there’s the multiplayer mode. I think this is the selling point for most people – not that the single player mode is bad. In this, two to four Bombermen are put in an arena together and have to blow each other up. It’s really fun running around and trying to out-manoeuvre your opponents with bomb placements. It can be hilarious to watch people accidentally blow themselves up and the feeling of trapping somebody in a corner with your bombs is delightful. What makes this one especially remarkable (historically) is that it was a four-player game on a console which only allowed two players – it came with a special device which let you add two more controls.
So if you get this game, you’re getting the amazing Bomberman multiplayer fun that has been highly regarded for so long… but you’re not really getting anything you can’t get anywhere else in the series. It’s a shame, because at the time it was highly innovative, but what made it impressive has ceased to be so.
Rating: 7.8/10
